Heh. It really isn't all that impressive. To me, "bad-ass" would be someone who ran through the pain for an extended period of time. I think from the time I felt the pain to the time it was gone was no more than 20 seconds. Now, to be clear, on Sunday when the doctor told me to just feel around and push it back in if I felt pain, I was as disgusted and freaked out as you'd expect. However, when the time came to do it and I thought for even a second that I could make it stop hurting and continue my run, it was a no-brainer. Really the most surprising/shocking part is that whatever it was stayed in for the rest of all that moving around for the rest of the run and hasn't been the least bit of trouble the rest of today. But after this morning's experience, I'm definitely planning on the "surgery ASAP" route. I'm not terribly interested in needing to do a repeat performance at some point, plus I want to get back in the weight room,

haha, yeah, I don't see myself running in skimpy little jogger shorts or even less in compression biker type shorts, thank you very much. These are my very comfortable Nike Dri Fit short. Seriously like them very much. Probably last year's model though since I got them for dirt cheap at some outlet store ;)

Pretty good hill workout this evening, some 45 minutes. Have yet to look at the map, but six times up a hill that was maybe 250m long and with a pretty good grade... Off to play with the file now ;)

FM

Hernia confirmed. Surgery 9/6.

Good luck, hopefully everything goes smoothly. What did they say about recovery time post-surgery? Same as I went through with a few weeks off, or do they feel you can come back quicker from this?

2 weeks for running. 3-4 weeks for lifting. Can do walking on incline treadill and/or biking as soon as I feel like. I figure I'll get the heart rate going with those two things for those two weeks, go hard the week of 9/23 and the first half of the next, then taper down to 10/20 with shorter but more intense runs. Not an ideal time to not be running, but I'll survive. It might "force" me to do another HM just to see how I can do time-wise, though. ;)

There will always be more races available. Important thing is getting healthy!

Actually the wife and I just talked. There's another HM 12/14 at Kiawah Island (like 40 minutes away from my house). I'm thinking I'll just eat the entry fee for Myrtle Beach and do the 12/14 one. That gives me plenty of time to recover and build back up. Plus, SWMBO just pointed out that we'll be in Columbus for Thanksgiving: absolutely perfect timing for some hard hill work the last hard week of running before Kiawah.

So....

Any tips on how many miles I can run when I get back to it after 2-3 weeks off? I'll be up to ~45 miles per week at the point of the surgery.

You likely won't lose too much fitness from just 2-3 weeks off. Fitness is long term to both accumulate and to lose it. For me, after surgery I took it easy the first 2-3 times because for whatever reason I didn't feel right where the surgery was performed. It just felt weird, and I was being overcautious due to nerves.

My recommendation would be for the first week back (after 2-3 weeks off), go every other day instead of every day, just to make sure you have no discomfort during the run, or after the run or the following day. After everything feels ok from the test drives, the next week, work back into a base week, don't do the speed work or the overly long run, and turn those into additional base runs to add the miles back.

After that, my opinion would be you'd be ok to work back in close to where you left off. I tend to be pretty cautious about adding miles slowly just due to chance of it causing additional injuries, but that is probably what I would do. If you were following a plan to finish at a specific goal race, you may need to re-calculate that, but many people who reschedule a race just continue on and then repeat the weeks prior to taper until they reach their new taper date.

My personal priority in return would be:
1) Make sure everything is feeling ok cautiously the first week back. Re-injuring anything by rushing in would stink.
2) Put the base miles back together again. I don't like running 10+ mile long runs without an appropriate 35+ mile per week base.
3) Re-introduce your long run when you feel ok with the base miles
4) Add back your speed work days last (since those tend to have the highest risk of new injury).


Edit: and with the way fitness works, taking 2-3 weeks off and then a gradual re-introduction would be pretty similar to a post race cool down period that the body usually needs anyways. You may find yourself when you start back feeling your legs are fresher than before and without much lost in cardio stand point. So you may even feel pretty ok once it is all said and done.

Ben, I'm sure you won't lose too much fitness in 2 weeks, in fact might even help you to come back stronger.

You are progressing really fast, amazingly fast, seems your body is made for running, seriously.

I'm also going through surgery soon, on the Sept 7th, vasectomy, and also hope won't lose a lot of days of running after it, no sex and no running, life will be so miserable for a week or two, but hope will be back stronger... at both things :D

Good luck, Icy!

So on the hernia, it appears that this sucker is going to cause me issues at random times for the next two weeks. Had to push stuff back in on Tuesday (by the way, the doc said that as small as mine is that what was protruding was very likely just fat that protects the innards, not any actual innards) no issues Wednesday. Thursday it was very annoying both during the run and some just walking around the house, but couldn't feel anything protruding. It was to the point last night that my bride and I agreed that if the run today was hampered by any discomfort, protrusions, etc, then we'd try to push the surgery up to an earlier date. Woke up this morning, no discomfort whatsoever...felt the best since Sunday (when it first dawned on me that "hey....that little annoying pain/discomfort in your right lower abdomen might be a hernia"), and none at all during the run or since, despite it being an interval run and therefore the fastest running/hardest pounding that I ever do, and today's intervals collectively being my fastest ever. *shurg*

shurg indeed...

FM

I finally had a run where I didn't have to slow down for a walking break. Hadn't had one of those since my 5k training.

I guess it helped that I was listening to a podcast to keep me distracted: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: Wrath of the Khans.

"Small World" moment:

I created a few segments along my normal running paths a while ago. I was the only person using Strava running any of these segments at the time, but a couple of months or so ago, some dude destroyed all of my best times by a long shot, so I started following Kyle Evans and commenting on his runs on Strava, and eventually he started following and commenting on mine. He lives a couple of subdivisions over from me, probably less than a mile as the crow flies, but his name wasn't familiar, and his face isn't prominent in his profile pic.

Fast forward to today: after church I go to the 4-5 Year Old Kids' Church room to get my daughter. One of the teachers sticks his hand out and says "you're Ben Lewis, right? I'm Kyle Evans."

Yup, the random dude I follow on Strava and his wife are my daughter's new Kids' Church leaders. :p

On my typical information searching and obsession when i get into something (running this time), i read today about "natural running", "chi running" and "pose running" that are basically different versions of the same running technique that tries to find the most efficient way of running (landing with your middle foot instead of with your heel), to improve your times and to avoid injuries as much as possible. The most extreme version is minimal or barefoot running.

While i don't see how running without shoes is a very good idea, and it's probably more of a new trend, the ideas behind it sounds good to me and i just bought the natural running book for the kindle to give the technique a shoot.

Video resume:



Any of you into that?

The discussion about minimalist running seems to be very opinionated by both sides. I don't do it myself, but those who argue for it say that by improving your form you can run without the need for extra cushioning and then that running style will greatly strengthen your foot for running. Those who oppose it site that it greatly increases the chances of injuries or even pretty bad injuries that is not worth it.

What I have taken away from the entire thing though is the understanding that there is great benefits from improving your running form regardless of what type of shoe you run. Some of the most important things that I feel that I have worked on was as you say change my stride to land on the mid part of my foot with each step. I was able to accomplish this by changing my stride to be a much shorter stride and thus increasing my cadence in the process.

The effort of changing the cadence has allowed me to greatly increase my efficiency when I run, especially noticeable now when I can just cruise up hills that used to kill me. Using less effort for each step means I am able to conserve my energy longer during the run.

In addition by having a quicker cadence, shorter stride and landing with a neutral step in the middle of my foot, it reduces the impact of each step, causing less chance for injury to the legs from adding large amount of miles, which is something very important to me running 40+ miles per week.

I have the same conclusion, in my next routine i'm going to try to run at 180 steps per minute instead of 80 that is my current average, shortening my stride and focusing on landing with my mid foot.

I don't plan on changing my shoes anytime soon, being overweight, I feel that the extra cushioning they provide is key for my knees.

Not sure if you caught this or not, it was something that I was confused about when I first started reading, but based on what you wrote I wasn't sure.. The ideal cadence is as you say around 180 steps per minute. When you measure with a cadence sensor, your current average is 80, but that is just for one of your feet. So your current cadence is really 160 currently. You just would ideally want to get yours up to 90 on your sensor to be at the 180 steps per minute.

Even that is a little flexible though, as I'll run about 90-93 on my sensor (180-186 steps per minute) when I'm running fast pace. However when I slow down for easy pace, I usually fall into somewhere around 83-85ish instead. So I don't know that I treat it as an exact for easy pace runs, but on my intervals or race pace or tempo runs, etc I definitely try to make sure to hit my cadence.

HAH! you've just explained something important to me. I remembered using iSmoothRun for its cadence sensor but never really understood the number it was giving me since it was around 80 or so. I figured it just probably wasn't working right since it's was impossible in my mind that I would more than double my leg turnaround to make it close to being about good. Now seeing that I'm doing 160, I understand a bit more.

The whole discussion about strides and cadence has been very instructive. I used to run with long strides and was landing mostly on my heels. I have since shortened my strides but I see that I probably need to make it a bit shorter and have a faster leg turnaround...

FM

September's Challenge, The Extender, now with a fifth milestone badge at 200km

I need Strava to introduce a 20 km badge :)

I wish they would do a challenge for elevation climbed in a month. I noticed I've climbed a little more than 20,000 feet in elevation on my runs so far this year. Only 9000 or so to go to match Mt. Everest! :)

Probably nothing compared to some of the ultra-marathoners that climb 10,000 ft in a single run though.

The Mt Fuji challeng really screamed for some sort of elevation gain challenge, they really missed an opportunity on this one. Even more when using this sentence to present the challenge:"Can you reach new running heights? The mountain is waiting."

FM

I'm working on my "Pick it up there, little buddy" badge.

Signed up for my first century ride!: Back Roads Century

What could go wrong? :)

Woo hoo! That looks fun!

that battle is still going strong ;)

12 FrogMan 782
13 Kodos 781

:)

FM

Yours has a lot more running in it than mine. :) Personally, I think running should get more points per mile than walking.

I need to solve the issue where my hips get tight after every run if I'm ever going to become a regular runner. It just saps the enjoyment out of things. Going to try some exercises that are supposed to help, and keep using my roller thing that Alan recommended (I tend to be very inconsistent in my usage of it). Alan/Ben - how often do you use the roller?

At first I only used it when something hurt, but after I went through some continuous issues with Shin splints and ITB band issues, I started rolling at least my calves after every run, and usually roll my IT Band also. If I do some pretty good hill work (or bike) I'll roll hamstrings and quads also.. generally anything that feels worked out now I'll roll after a run.

Doing that seems to have helped keep the nagging aches away for the last few weeks. Now I'm just dealing with the mental struggle of being at the end of my training plan and the wear of all of the miles running and biking are starting to add up for me.

You have been in beast mode recently.

This is my final week. I have a 15 mile run scheduled for Sunday, but because of a camping trip i may do it Monday instead. Once that is done, I wind down the next two weeks before my half-marathon on the 15th.

Then it is a bit of fun time for me for a bit I think. I'm thinking about a 5k that I might run at the beginning of October (my first road 5k I did last year when I first started running before I had surgery). I'm curious to see how much I improved on the same race in one year :). Some friends want me to do another half-marathon with them in mid-October as well. I'm heavily considering doing a Duathlon at the end of October, plus trying to convince my wife to do a zombie run 5k with me in October too :)

Doubt I'll get to do all of those, but we'll see how it works out. Then I'll figure out what my running plans are as far as what I want to train for over the Winter.

I was about to ask if anyone here was considering Duathlons, now that I've been seeing more cycling activities from all of you.

I am planning on doing something epic and stupid tomorrow morning. Hopefully I will be able to end August on the Master leaderboard.

If there is anyone who would be qualified for such a mission, it'd be Subby!

What could possibly go wrong!? :)

I wanted to go for a longer run today but the 96 degree, 74 dew point combo is going to keep this a short one. The heat has been rough lately but I'm not wishing away the summer - anything is better than running in the cold.

I actually enjoyed running in the snow and avoiding 12 foot snow drifts far more than this humidity all summer. I personally have been counting down the days until it gets cool again and the dew point returns to almost reasonable levels!

Stepped on a screw during my run this morning and put a nice little hole in my foot. Awesome!

ugh, that sucks!

FM

I bite on this.

I will do the ½ marathon in Oslo in late September. My target is 1:42:00 but that might be a bit ambitious.

After that my plan is to start training for the ½ Ironman in my birth town of Helsingør, Denmark next year. They will host the first race next weekend but hopefully it will be back next year.
Forside - Go Epic Kronborg

They got both the ¼ Ironman (1 km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run) and the ½ Ironman (1,9 km swim, 90 km bike and a half marathon).

I know I can do the run and started biking last month and have really enjoyed it so I feel confident about that part. Swimming is the scary part. But we got the swimming facilities just five minutes from were we live so I really don’t have any excuse.
It will force me to loss another 5-7 kg and also start lifting some weights.

As I start to venture off into longer distances (this morning 4.5 miles, and my longest run to date) I'm learning a lot about the mental toughness of endurance activities.

How to you get past the "OMG I'm not even halfway through yet" mindset?

Okay - I did my first 100 mile ride yesterday. Unassisted, with two other cyclists. It was way hotter and more humid than we anticipated. Ended up stopping twice to load up on gatorade. Ended up with just over a mile in climbing and 4500 calories burned. Got enough achievement points to be the first 500 pointer at Fit Leagues! :)

The climb at Sugarloaf is 400 ft in just under 1.5 miles and we did it three times in a row. Coming down was fricking insane. There is nothing like flying down a winding mountain road with hairpin switchbacks. It was so great.

Now that was epic.

Listening to Podcasts helps me a ton with this. I've got stuff of varying lengths to get me through longer runs.

was gonna say something similar to Ben, I listen to music when I run. Actually I more than anything lose myself in the music so time/mileage is not taken into account much. But then again, like in this morning's run of 14.3 km, my longest yet, I find myself thinking about how long there's still to do before I'm back home. Just gotta fight through those moments I guess...

FM

Yeah. I think podcasts are what's going to get me going. I've been trying out different ones over the past few runs: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and Welcome to Night Vale to name a couple. But those started to get a little dry as it went along. I'm thinking of stringing together a few episodes of We're Alive on my next outing.

I agree. The Tony Kornheiser podcast has taken me thru a lot of miles.

On the long run I change my clock from showing distance to just showing pace. Trying to focus on keeping the right pace instead of counting miles has helped me a lot.

yeah, this too. Concentrating on breathing, how I feel, how my feet are hitting the pavement and not how long I have been going, or how long there's left to go have also helped me quite a bit...

FM

I've got a 5K Race coming up this Sunday at Long Beach, CA. It's expected to be a partly cloudy day with a high of 83°F and humidity 63%.

With a 7:30 start time and being in a coastal city, it will likely to be overcast throughout the entire run. Should be a flat and fast course, but also very crowded (I'll probably be weaving through some walkers in the front for the first 1/4 mile).

I've been training at a slower pace than I had before my long vacation and my first 5K race, so I don't plan to break any PR here. I'll just focus on achieving negative splits and then take what my body can give me at the end.

I listen to music as well. Hadn't thought of the podcasts. I may give that a whirl...I'm starting to fall behind on the ones I listen to.

My first 5k is September 21st.

I've not been depressed per say, but the inability to run has been getting to me a bit. Went to the doctor yesterday, now that I am back in town from the camping trip and he said the wound looks clean, doesn't seem like there is any signs of infection. He gave me anti-biotic to take for 5 days just to be safe though.

The soreness that keeps me from running though is likely the bruising of the foot pad area where the hole is. He says that it likely won't get worse but it might still linger through when my half marathon is scheduled for. Going to try to stay off of it as much as possible for a bit and then figure out how it is feeling next week. He said worst case, if it is still sore, I can take two advil before the race to help with the tissue pain some.

Bleh.

I guess at least it's not infected. Still sucks though. Heal up quick!

I know how you feel. While I am more into lifting, tearing my wrist ligaments 18 months ago and my ankle 4 months ago has been frustrating and I tend to stil try and lift anyway and re injure my wrist or ankle

Sorry to hear about that Alan. Hopefully with some rest it will heal quickly.

that really sucks, hope it gets better soon, at least so you can enjoy your half marathon!

FM

Bummer. Freak injuries are the. worst.

Hang in there.

So since we started doing this in May, three freak accidents have occurred (bike accident to founder within 1st week, followed by HWMBA*'s guts spilling out, and then lovable character Alan gets screwed). This is clearly the start of a horror film. And now that I am wising up to the plot and trying to warn the others, I am in danger of being next.


(Note to self: get health insurance, dummy)




* he who must be admired

While not a freak accident, per se, I did manage to injure my knee back in June while attempting the longest run (4 miles) in my brief running career, keeping me off the pavement for over two weeks.

I didn't know this, but according to my doctor there is a hereditary component to propensity for hernias. I'm the third Lewis brother to get at least one hernia, and my dad had one. Go figure. I just assumed it had to do with our activity levels at various times in our lives.

Tonight will be my last run before the surgery. I'm not 100% sure what it's going to be, but right now I'm thinking something like 1 mile warmup, then go for a 10K PR, then 2.8 slow miles to make it 10 even. We'll see. I've also never tried to see the best I can do for a 5K, so that's a possibility...

Out of surgery and feeling pretty ok. Not groggy at all. Surgery went well. Thanks for the concerns. Discharge in 15-20 minutes apparently.

Update on the surgery/recovery here: From Fat To Fit At 44: Post-Surgery Update

Short version: getting better, and if all goes well, I may be able to resume running after 9/24.

Race Report: Aquarium of the Pacific 5K, Sept 8, 2013
 

So I ran my second 5K race on Sunday. Was a beautiful, cool morning along the scenic seaside village and marina of Downtown Long Beach, California.

There were 486 runners. I expected a whole lot more, but I'm glad there wasn't because there were some narrow passages along the seaside village where only 3-4 wide could pass through.

Because of my expected pace, I started near the middle of the pack. Here's the scene at the starting line.



I took off faster then I had planned, because I was trying to maneuver between a lot of walkers, not to mention the race day adrenalin. Strava reported at 1/2 mile a full minute faster pace than I wanted. Oh well.

About 3/4 miles in, I got a beautiful view of the Queen Mary. I just had to stop and take a pic.



So a mile in, I finally settled in on a pace, but had to take a few walking breaks every once in a while. I kept on seeing a husband and wife pushing their jogging stroller, so I decided that they're the right pace for me for the middle part of the race, so I chatted with them for a while. The wife had actually recently completed the C25K herself, so that was nice to hear another C25K success story.

At 2 3/4 miles, I wanted to pick it up at the end. Turned out at that exact moment, a really cute asian girl had just passed me so she became my unintentional pacer. I followed her while admiring her... er... running form... to keep me distracted while pushing my body faster than I have ever before.

It didn't last very long because she stopped to walk with about 200 m to go. I tried to encourage her and help to pace her, but she declined. So I had to take the finish line on my own. Luckily the crowd pushed me to the finish.

I got my medal and high-fived the Aquarium of the Pacific shark mascot and headed straight for the banana and Gatorade station.

Official race results: I finished at 42:40, placed 295 out of 486, and 35 out of 43 in my division (40-49 Male).

Unofficially, Strava reported a 5K distance time of 42:15. And PRs on all distances up to 5K except 400m where I ran my 2nd fastest. Overall a very good run.

And here's my obligatory Finish Line photo:

Sounds like you had fun. :) Good job!

To recap:

My last race:
Scenery was mostly corn fields with the occasional excitement of a bean field.
My pacer was a dude with a horrendous running shorts issue

Your race:
Palm trees, marina, water front
Cute asian girl

I may be a little jealous. Great job!

Well, the doc SAID I was allowed to do incline treadmill work. :p

Seriously, I am beyond thrilled right now. I went to the gym and walked for 50 minutes on the treadmill. 5-minute warmup, then 40 minutes at 3.0 to 3.6mph with a 15% incline, then a 5-minute cooldown. I was able to get the heart rate up above 160, averaged 140, and burned over 500 calories per my HRM. To compare that with a recent pre-surgery workout, on 8/31 I did a 45-minute run at recovery pace for me (9:44 per mile). Average HR was 137 and I burned 482 calories. So it looks like I can get very similar aerobic benefits as recovery-paced runs--maybe a little better if I stay on the high end of that speed range. Next time I go, I'll just stay at 3.5 or 3.6mph the whole time, I think. It's not the same as being able to work in speed work and long runs, but it's a ton better than what I thought I'd be able to do.

polarpersonaltrainer.com

Congrats ABC! And Ben, glad to hear recovery is going along nicely and you aren't totally held back!


I just made an appointment with my doctor for next week. Lower back pain, neck pain, upper back pain, and a "tingling" sensation in my middle back that comes and goes, all of this is new within the last few weeks. I never pulled anything or had one instant where I felt like I'd hurt myself. None of it is really holding me back right now, all of it is intermittant and *most* of the time is fairly mild, but obviously something is up. I am worried that there is a change in my mechanics (wrong term?) from the orthotics that is causing problems, but I spend most of my time sitting so I've been looking at my bed/desk/computer chair/posture as things to improve upon first.

I dropped back to just walking a couple weeks ago and will continue to do that, I'd been feeling real out of sorts when trying to run here and there, wasn't feeling like I was improving or gaining fitness back, and decided that maybe it was best for me to try to go for a nice brisk walk every day, at least for now.

Its been a pretty frustrating summer at times! But I know I'm trying to reverse like 15 years of bad eating and non-existent exercise habits, so I know its not going to be easy or just happen overnight, etc, etc.

Grats ABC, and Ben glad your recovery is going well so far. Sorry to hear about your struggles Radii, keep strong though, I am sure you will turn the corner and it will all be worth it.


As for me, my half marathon race is this Sunday, and every possible thing that could go unplanned has been. I had to travel this week for work, which was not ideal right before the race. I'll make the most of it though as best I can around everything in the work schedule.

For my foot, my prescribed antibiotics are done with, so pretty sure now all that is left is the healing of the injured foot pad where the hole is. It only really hurts when I walk on hard wood floors barefoot, so been trying to wear shoes or at least socks as much as possible.

When running in my running shoes, it is not a stabbing pain, but more just a dull throbbing the entire time that gets worse the longer I go on. On my 8 mile run, by the end it was aching a bit, but on my shorter runs its been tolerable. At this point I'm just going to suck it up and run with the throbbing this week and then for the race. The doctor said it wouldn't injure it further, it basically acts like a bruise at this point. He said if it is bad I can take an advil, but going to try to avoid that.

In Spoilers, a bonus picture for anyone that wants to see the actual wound :) It no longer is bloody, and the surface has healed to scab over and become a black looking spot where the hole was made. Fun fun!




Edit: Oh.. and after running 4 miles here in Long Island, I went for all you can eat sushi.. which was either the best thing ever or a really bad idea. I'm not sure which :)

Alan, the picture of your sexy foot brought up a memory. I cut the bottom of my foot one summer just before a big summer basketball camp. The doctor also gave me a pad to use but cut out a section in the pad where the cut was. It had to be taped to stay in place but it kept me from putting pressure on the wound itself. Just a thought...

Just like they would do for runners with blisters.

Edit: you can probably find such blister pads at your local drugstore.

Run Of The Dead - A Zombie 5K to benefit the YMCA | ACTIVE

Has anyone done one of these?

55 minutes with a 147 average heart rate on the incline treadmill today. The numbers for calorie burn and heart rate compare very closely to a 6-mile run that I did a week before the surgery at a 9:16 pace. Here's that run:

polarpersonaltrainer.com

Here's today's treadmill walk:

polarpersonaltrainer.com

Very happy to get that kind of heart rate elevation for an extended period of time without doing any running.

Getting a little nervous as the 5k approaches. The past two runs have been of the 2 mile variety since I was pinched on time. Today's run was 3.3 miles but was way off on pace.

11 more days.

Woot! iSmoothRun released an update with support for my Polar Bluetooth stride sensor. Very timely, given that I'm doing treadmill walks right now. They also added an auto-export to MyFitnessPal in this update.

Comparison of some runs of similar heart rate to my incline treadmill work the last three days:




(The "load" column is the "Training Load" that Polar calculates to estimate how hard you worked and how ready you are to train again the next day.)

So, a few questions/observations here:

1. Has anyone had any experience doing this sort of high-incline walking for a time and transitioning back to running? (Or using high-incline walking as part of your ongoing training program.) If so, what should expect?
2. I weigh a bit less than I did prior to the surgery. (I'm 181.6 today, was around 184-186 for the three runs.) With weight change factored in, the calories per minute numbers are extremely similar, and the heart rates on the walks are actually a hair higher overall than the three runs. Does this really mean that I'm getting as good (or better) cardio benefits per minute with the incline walking?
3. It feels like my legs are working much harder to do the incline walking than the running. (duh) Am I correct in thinking that these sorts of workouts will end up strengthening my lower body better than running?
4. Of course it could be that the surgery has taken some out of me, but I definitely feel like I'm working harder in these walks than I was in the runs, even though I'm indoors with cooler temperatures. The Polar Training Load numbers per minute would seem to agree with that assessment? Am I correct in assuming that's because the leg muscles are having to work harder, even though the heart rate isn't significantly higher?

Anyway, interesting stuff, and I'd appreciate any input anyone might have. Thanks in advance.

Finally started running again this week after a 3 week hiatus, but my Garmin seems to have bit the dust. So that blows.

Also, I took a new job that I started this week, and my new run-commute is much shorter (3 miles vs 4.5). So that's not as great either. And I may have to give up run-commuting because we may need a second car so I can help take the kids to or from school. So that's not so great either.

So basically, my running life has had a seismic upheaval this month. Hopefully I can work out some kind of new routine before the snow hits.

Ugh, this week has been rough. My foot and lack of time from business travel demotivated my running a little bit, and my mother was in a car accident while visiting my sister in Canada and is having some issues with the hospital and her insurance back in the United States (as well as the surgery she needs).. and that has led me to a little stress eating for the first time in a long time.

End result, I'm up about 6-7 pounds and in no good shape for the race on Sunday. Drove home last night in the flash floods and time to turn this ship around before I really get worse.. Ugh what a miserable week.

Well the race went far better than I imagined it would. Still on the way home so have not had a chance to sync my run yet, but I believe the half marathon time was possibly just under 1 hour 55 minutes.

Felt great most of the race. Completely just ignored my sore foot and pretended it was not there and cruised the first 8 miles -- pretty sure I have a new 10k PR in there somewhere too when I sync.

The weather was beautiful, didn't even need to drink anything the entire run. Only issue I ran into was a stupid side stitch around mile 9-10 which hampered me for about 15 minutes, but worked it out and finished strong. Most of the laps were in the 8:45 range, some as fast as 8:23-8:30 I seem to recall from my watch while running. Only slow laps was a 9:04 for the first lap as I was trying to dodge all the slow runners and then I think 9:20-9:25 when working out the side stitch for two miles.

Over all totally ecstatic as I made my big goal for the summer of a sub two hour half marathon as well as other various goals such as a new 10k PR mixed in. I don't think I ran any 5k segments fast enough for a new PR there, but will see when I sync.

Time to enjoy a few easy down weeks of running and biking while I figure out what my main winter goal will be. I am so pumped right now. Completely opposite of where I was earlier this week mentally.

Alan, this is awesome! Well done! I'd missed your previous update or else I'd have tried to cheer you up a bit. But working through that side stitch, and not caring about the foot, you went into beast mode for that race, very impressive!

For me, I had my longest run EVER this morning. Plan was for a 10 miler at a fairly easy pace but around the 7th mile or so, I felt so good I starteda adding some tempo work to it, even some hills reps and ended up stretching out the run to 18 km, or about 11.3 miles. This was a distance I was aiming for since there's a local race that is a loop around a local lake that you can sign up to do once for 6k, twice for 12k or three times for 18k. I was thinking about the 18k but had never ran that long in any of my runs. Now with it done, I'll just have to work on the pacing a but, but I'm signing up in a few minutes...

FM

Awesome to hear that you had a half marathon where you were proud of effort and results. Will be interested to hear about next round of goals.

Thanks guys! Here is the list of achievements for me this morning:




So excited! All of the summer's hard work in stupid high humidity paid off!!

Dola...

Not sure if you all have seen. on Strava, the FOFC club has a club leaderboard in there now. Not sure when that was added!

I just saw the upload - great job, Alan. I was thinking you shattered your goal and it looks like you did. It's great to see all of your hard work pay off.

Great Job, Alan!

Awesome Alan!

Very impressive run, Alan!

Awesome job Alan, and just the week you were feeling bad, way to turn things around!

Thanks guys, definitely one of my happier moments!

Congrats and great job, Alan!

Just got back from the most encouraging inclined treadmill walk yet:

Walk Profile | Incline treadmill one hour at mostly 3.6/15% | Times and Records | Strava

It's not showing on the site, but my phone is showing a Suffer Score of 185. I've only gotten a SS higher than that on a run of around an hour once--way back in May when I weighed 45 more pounds than I do now and did my first sub-one-hour 10K, it was 196.

Average heart rate of 162 today. I could only find one other run with a heart rate that high: my 10K PR run on 8/20: Run Profile | 10K Self-Race For Training Pace Recalc | Times and Records | Strava

So basically I'm inclined (heh) to treat today's cardio like a very hard run and do a "recovery walk" tomorrow, keeping the heart rate around 140-145, then do another "hard walk" on Thursday. Boredom probably won't allow me to do a 2-hour long walk this weekend, but I might try finding a movie I want to watch on Netflix and giving it a go. ;)

All in all, I'm very encouraged about what is seeming to be the inevitability of losing very little aerobic fitness during my no-running time.

And y'all can start yelling at me now, but the wife even agrees with me that with the way these treadmill walks have gone, the 10/20 Myrtle Beach HM is back on the table as a possibility. If I am cleared to run at my 9/24 Dr. appointment, I'm thinking that I'll do easy runs that rest of that week, and if they go well, do a typical-for-me 5-run week the week of 9/30, then a 2-week taper down to race day.

You guys are inspirational!

Kickass, Alan!

Any aerobic fitness that you did lose from a few weeks off will come back quicker this time around anyways. I don't honestly think you'll have to worry too much about the aerobic fitness lost aspect here. The one thing that I personally would worry about for you is the physical difference between running and walking on your legs/feet/lower body.

Walking and running uses different muscle groups and it could be easy if rushed back in to encounter some weird leg pains such as shin splints, etc that you wouldn't have normally expected. So I think ramping back up miles even at an easy pace, just to get the miles under your legs after cleared to run will help reduce any risk there of injury. I don't think you would want to ramp that up quickly from 0 to 40 miles per week obviously.

Also since you have already been forced to taper due to surgery, you won't have 12+ weeks of build up fatigue in your legs. I don't know if you necessarily need a full two week taper before a half marathon. It might be more important in my opinion to get those miles built back up comfortably at this point. You probably want to back off the intensity of the workouts two weeks prior (partially because any aerobic gains from high intensity workouts is not going to even apply any longer within a two week window), but I would likely only start backing off on miles the week of the race myself.

I could see that. Given that I ran hard 12 hours before the surgery and started pushing the heart rate again 3 days afterward, I'm assuming the taper you're speaking of is mainly leg tiredness.

There are so many wild cards involved here that I really don't know what to expect. As you said, the different muscles being used are a wild card. I'm really working *some* of the running muscles by doing this stuff, but not all of them. And then there's the fact that I weigh 10 pounds less than the last time I did a "self-race" to recalc training paces and whatnot. Oh yeah, and it has been 8-12 degrees cooler in the mornings the last week or so here than it has been for months. And knowing me, this week and a half coming up of mirroring run heart rates will yield higher heart rates than I was doing when I was running, thus likely pushing aerobic fitness up another notch and probably dropping a little more weight. And my running form may suffer a bit because I'm unintentionally trying to protect my right side from jostling too much.

All that taken into consideration, I figure that if I return to running next week, I'll either not run in the HM at all because of post-surgery pain/injury, or crush my HM goal time. ;)

DC Rainmaker just posted a First Look preview of the Garmin Forerunner 220 and 620.

I saw those earlier.. the 220 looks pretty nice compared to the 210, but I'm thinking my next watch is going to probably let me connect a bike speed/cadence sensor which the 210 doesn't (and it doesn't look like the 220 will either).

Hey guys, this is the last thread I thought I would ever be posting in because I have hated running ever since I can remember. :)

I can't say I'm particularly fond of it just yet but in an effort to slim down and improve my overall physical fitness (for whatever reason, the post highlighting Ben's transformation was the spark I needed) I started eating better and trying to exercise regularly.

So far, so good...down from 235 to 220 since mid-August and am enjoying the fact that my clothes are too big and that, eventually, I'll get to go out and buy some new stuff! :D

Anyway, I spent the morning scanning through this thread and probably have a half dozen or so new tabs waiting to be read because there seems to be a lot of valuable advice/info spouting out of you guys...who knew?!

I've been using RunKeeper to track my activities thus far but decided to join you guys on Strava and the Fitleagues for the added social aspect of it all. So, if you notice "John Hunter" or "jryhunter" pinging you, that's me.

Being a noob at the running business I probably overdid it despite spending 3 weeks walking regularly to try and get my body ready for running because the last few runs have not been fun on my knees. My last attempt was Saturday morning and my knees were fine for the first KM but started to hurt towards the end of that so I started to walk. I tried running again a little while later but they hurt quite a bit so I decided it would be best to just to finish the rest of my run by walking as quickly and as comfortably as I could. Oh well.

My knees aren't aching nearly as much as they have been the last few days so hopefully that means I can get back out there and continue my assault on the sidewalks of Sherwood Park again soon. :P

Johnny, great to have you join us!

When I first started, I had a ton of knee pain myself. If you were like me and mostly non-active, it takes a while for the body to get used to the wear and tear. It looks like you've been doing great so far just by starting. I would highly encourage you to try out a couch to 5k program even though it looks like you started off with 3 mile runs anyways. You don't have to start on day 1 necessarily, but those programs help you get started and gradually ramp you up in intensity in an effort to try to not kill you at the start.

Almost all of us started where you are, so feel free to join in the conversations and let us root you on in your progress too!

Thanks for the welcome, Alan...much appreciated.

I appreciate the advice about trying out a couch to 5k program and I had checked one out before I started down this path but decided to alter it a bit based on how I felt. The first few walks were a breeze so I upped the distance and tried to push the pace whenever possible. When it suggested running I didn't feel like I was ready so I just continued to walk until I felt like I could handle it.

Well, guess my knees didn't think I was ready afterall. :(

Another factor I didn't really consider until last week was the terrain. I've been running in my neighbourhood on the sidewalk and unfortunately, there are plenty of dips (every driveway) so I finally found a route that is about 75% flat and hope that helps out with the knee issues.

So, the question is, do I try to run through the pain or just keep walking until there is no pain? I suspect walking, or nothing at all, would be the best answer, right? :(

Regarding the sidewalks.. if your sidewalks are cement, you might find it more comfortable to run on the asphalt road instead since asphalt is a softer running surface than concrete is. (As long as it is a safe or low traffic place to be able to run on the road). I tend to run in the road myself when it is safe for that reason.

As for what to do with the pain... There will be various forms of pain that come up from time to time, but generally if it is muscle soreness, that can be run through easier than joint pains. I would take it easy when dealing with knees or other joints because you don't want to introduce injury. It is pretty rough on the body to go from no running at all to running 3+ miles or multiple days in a row. Especially starting out, getting in rest days and ramping up is important.

One thing that sometimes helps with some pains such as knee pains or shin pains or such could simply be a case of needing better running shoes or different running shoes support wise. Or it might be a case where your running mechanics are more prone to heavier impact on your joints (ie: a shorter stride and quicker cadence tends to put less impact on knees/legs than a longer stride does, and landing mid-foot or mid-front foot tends to put less impact on your leg than landing on your heel would.)

I guess my belief is that any exercise is better than no exercise and you don't want to push yourself so hard where you just don't want to do it anymore. So take it easy with the knees, walk some or if you can mix in other forms of less impact cardio like elliptical or biking that might help too. In the end though, you'll have to do the running to train your legs to do more running. Just take it easy as you start and ramp up gradually in both distance and intensity.

Yes, the sidewalks are concrete but running on the road in the neighbourhood would be tough because there are just too many cars parked on the street to make it safe. But, the long stretch of my latest run is on an asphalt path so maybe I need to walk the first km of concrete sidewalks and then run on the asphalt path...there's an idea. :)

When I started down this road I did buy myself some Saucony Ride 5 runners...by no means high end but better than the old Nikes I was sporting. They feel comfortable and seem to be very supportive. So, hopefully shoes isn't the issue with my knees and more about just my body adjusting to something new.

I think I'll ice my knees again tonight and see how they feel in the morning or tomorrow evening and hopefully I'll be back at it soon.

Oh, to the guys who use both RunKeeper and Strava on your smartphones, do you run both apps during your activity or just one of them? Having just installed Stava today, are there any benefits to using it instead of RunKeeper during my activity?